In the End: A Dream
by katilara
Summary: Is this how battles are won now, he hissed. By indulging in fear? IchigoxRenji.


**A/N:** was doing this for **anime flash **(challenge 2B - World Domination), but it got too long. I kind of like it, but I don't see it ever growing into a real fic because KT's characters give me a headache. And it's not that I don't love some of them (OMGKAIEN!!), I just can't get inside of them the way I do other characters. Done mostly because I wanted to tell Ichigo to stop being A GIRL during 115. And then Rukia did, thank god. But here, Renji gets to. ;) Partially betaed, as in, I fixed things when I transferred it.

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Ichigo leaned against the wall of the shower, palms flat against the tiles. Water ran down his bowed head and neck and washed over his back. The spray from the shower head was hot, but he could still feel the sting where it hit his skin. It wasn't hot enough. 

He wanted to _forget_, he wanted to _break down_. It was all too heavy. The look in Rukia's eyes, the expectations of the Gotei 13, the weight of the hollow inside of him as it fought to be free. He didn't want any of it anymore, and he thought that maybe if the water could get just a little hotter, if it was so hot he didn't feel it on his skin anymore, that it could wash the weight away like blood down a drain.

He lifted his head to see large hands cover his own, and he could feel the wet cloth of a shirt bowing down onto his lower back under the weight of the water. Something shifted on his shoulder and there was a spill of brilliant, dark red hair. He grimaced and wished that that too would wash away.

"You idiot," Renji growled into his ear. "You didn't even hear me coming."

Ichigo could feel the heart of Renji's gigai as it beat somewhere over his left shoulder blade, and Renji's breath had managed to become hotter than the water. _Maybe, maybe that would do. Maybe that could cleanse_. "Maybe I did, maybe I let you come," he said to the shower head.

Renji snorted. "Liar," he said, and pressed closer to Ichigo. His chest covered Ichigo's back and damned the wash of water so that it broke at his shoulders and spilled down his sides. A million wet fingers caressed him endlessly and Ichigo cursed it for being pleasant, arousing even. "Since when do you lie?"

It was Ichigo's turn to snort. "I always have."

"You've never said you were going to do something you didn't later accomplish," Renji said quietly. His voice was empty of the brashness it usually carried, was devoid of all emotion. Ichigo suddenly felt the urge to apologize to him like he had to Orihime.

"I didn't kill Grand Fisher," was what he said instead.

"So," Renji said. "He's dead, that's all that matters. You didn't really get the chance."

"Hmm," Ichigo grunted. He pushed against the wall and flexed the muscles in his back, trying to push Renji away from him. He wanted to be left alone, and he didn't even know why the great idiot was here in the first place.

Renji pushed back and caused Ichigo to slip forward. Renji caught him with an arm around the waist and leaned forward so that his chin rested on Ichigo's shoulder. "Is this how battles are won now," he hissed. "By indulging in fear?"

"Shut up!" Ichigo tried to pull free, but only succeeded in wriggling closer to Renji. The ridiculous muscles that stretched the wet sleeves of that ridiculous school uniform shirt were obscene, and Ichigo wasn't a match for them. "You don't," he gasped. "I can't-"

"I don't _understand_?" Renji laughed, low in the back of his throat, and the hairs on the base of Ichigo's neck stood up. "You really are an idiot. But you're the worst kind of idiot, a brave idiot. You, always running in without thinking and cutting down everything in your path. I've _seen_ you do it. I've _helped_ you do it. So why are here now, cowering in the goddamned shower?"

Ichigo said nothing.

"You know what? You're right," Renji splayed his hand open where it held Ichigo's stomach. The fingers stretched across Ichigo's skin and caused more pain than the water had in the beginning. Ichigo felt like Renji was branding him. He hoped it would leave a mark. He came away from too many confrontations with scratches that healed and confusion that scabbed over. He wanted something permanent to remind him of what could be lost.

"You won't defeat Aizen," Renji said. "You won't conquer Hueco Mundo, you won't even dominate the hollow within yourself. You won't because you don't want to, and you won't because you can't even dominate me." Teeth scraped against Ichigo's shoulder and he shuddered and groaned. _Yes_. Something he deserved. "Congratulations, you're no longer the worst kind of idiot. Now you're just pathetic."

"Go the fuck away," he snarled, but he didn't move.

Renji used his other hand to grab Ichigo's shoulder. Ichigo hissed as ragged nails dug into his skin. "Make me," he said. The emotion had suddenly flooded back into his voice; anger and fear and superiority. He slammed Ichigo sideways into the tiled wall of the shower.

On impact, everything went black.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_He doesn't remember falling asleep, but when he wakes the water is cold, and he shivers as he reaches forward to turn it off. He dries off slowly and methodically pulls on his clothing, trying to think of the right things to say to the six shinigami in his bedroom. The hollow laughs and he looks at his face in the mirror, eyebrows furrowed, jaw set in determination._ Keep laughing, _he tells the hollow_, because in the end, it's only me.


End file.
